Biggest Fintech Mergers and Funding News from Jan 2021

Where 2020 was not a good year for most industries, the Fintech market marked a high growth curve as businesses, process, and even daily lives went virtual. In the absence of physical contacts, individuals relied heavily on the virtual services to disburse and access funds. This is where Fintech solutions had a vital role to play.

Recently, the popularity of Fintech spiked, and around 96% of the global consumers have admitted to use at least one Fintech service in their lives. The year 2021 is predicted to be fruitful for the entire Fintech sector. The following are the future trends that are going to reshape Fintech in 2021:

1. Autonomous Finance, which is at the top of the list. Autonomous finance is going to take the burden off the consumers for the recurring utility bill payments, cable subscription, insurance and so on.
2. Open Banking has been in the picture for quite some time, nevertheless, there are some major breakthroughs unfurling very soon for us.
3. The digital only banks have fared good until now. They offer a promising future for their consumers.
4. Voice technology is on the frontline and Fintech creators are keen on offering the best of this facility to their consumers.

Read More: GlobalFintechSeries Interview with Vishal Pasari, VP and GM, Digital Solutions at Fiserv

We mentioned some top trends as Fintech is evolving and innovation thrives in this sector. We also came across some fantastic acquisitions and funding deals for the month of January 2021, that will substantiate what we spoke above.

Check out the following compilation of funding deals across the Fintech sector far and wide:

Top Venture Deals

1. Investors like Tiger Global Management, Insight Venture Partners, DST Global, and four more have raised around $450 M for issuer processing solutions in Checkout.com – a popular Fintech from the UK.
2. For innovative Banking software suite, Regions Bank, TPG, Greycroft, Cota Capital, and five more have invested $300 M in MX suite – a Fintech from the US.
3. Blend from US will soon add an automated loan cycle management suite as it has received venture funding of $300M from Tiger Global Management, Canapi and Coatue in series G.
4. Series E brought with it good news for Creditas from Brazil. Wellington Management, LGT Lightsone, Tarsadia Capital, Advent International and three more have invested $255 M.
5. Enfusion – a cloud based investment management software received a venture funding of $150M from ICONIQ, Hillhouse, Capital Group and FTV Capital in Series D.
6. Nucleus Commercial Finance from London, UK, an online balance sheet lender, reports of securing $316.8 M funding line.
7. A global provider of local payments infrastructure, PPRO (London, UK) reports to raise over US $ 180M funding line.
8. LendingPoint (Atlanta, US), which is a financial technology firm received $125M as equity investment from Warburg Pincus.
9. A blockchain based start-up, Figure Technologies from San Francisco, US has received $100 M from the giant JP Morgan. The start-up offers loans against mortgage equity.
10. The start-up Creditshelf from Frankfurt, Germany received EUR 40 million debt financing from the Amsterdam Trade Bank.

There are yet many interesting deals and funding rounds, but we chose to select the above mentioned ones.

From the west too, there was a lot of gung-ho in the Fintech sector. Collaborations, M & A, investments, cloud computing and regulation was on the priority list. The following points shall share some insights on the latest developments:

1. Tiktok’s Chinese version, Douyin, has recently added “Douyin Pay” to its list of services and existing payment options.
2. A well-known Crypto broker, Bitpanda has announced that its new launch of Visa Card that will combine all assets such as cryptocurrencies, all precious metals and fiat into one card in real time.
3. The ECD and the European committee are collaborating to investigate a new policy. They are measuring the legal and technical implications of the launch of the digital Euro.
4. The regulatory requirement that stopped the launch of IPO is being investigated by the ANT group in China.
5. For better and streamlined fintech collaboration and governance, Sweden’s five largest banks are partnering along with the police to create a more formal framework.
6. A multinational investment management corporation – Black Rock from US plans to add Bitcoin to its arsenal very soon.
7. There is a news floating from Goldman Sachs, who is on a spree of acquisition to bulk up its consumer banking unit Marcus.

Read More: The Evolution of Payments Technology

No country is behind in Fintech race. Indian Fintech companies have collectively raised around $130 million from investors in the month of January 2021 itself. The total VC Funding has reached an unprecedented high leading to a record number of Fintech Unicorns worldwide.